trimming the beards of locals, and for his poetry. A new minister in the parish needed his razors sharpened, and when he sent them to Thomson they were returned well sharpened along with suitable verses for the occasion. Works With the minister's encouragement, a book of Poems, in the Scottish dialect by James Thomson, Weaver in Kinleith, was published in 1801, printed by J. Fillans & Sons, Edinburgh, and published by W. Reid, Leith, for the Author. This opened with An Account of the Author, giving his life story, and a Dedication to the Merchants of Leith. The contents include a sharp epigram: A set of four love songs describes the author being too bold in the first, then in the second bidding farewell to buchts, or sheep-folds, he had become excessively shy. The tune "Logan Water" as well as the first verse of the poem itself refer to the Logan Burn. In the chorus he laments no longer taking pleasure in the singing of the laverock, the skylark. He gained the patronage of General Scott of Malleny, and dedicated to him Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Leith, 1819). Thomson also published A poem, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, on raising and selling the dead, and the melancholy spectacle which was presented to the inhabitants of Currie, on their taking two dead bodies from a cart in its way from Lanark to Edinburgh (Leith, 1821). Thomson lived until 1832, in reasonable prosperity. Commemoration The Kinleith Burn below Thomson's house has been named the "Poet's Burn", after James Thomson, the "Weaver Poet", and it runs down the steeply sloping "Poet's Glen" down to near Currie Kirk where it flows into the Water of Leith after passing under a bridge of the Water of Leith Walkway. His cottage still stands at Mid Kinleith farm, with "Mount Parnassus" still inscribed over the entrance door. References See also List of 18th-century British working-class writers 1763 births 1832 deaths 18th-century Scottish poets 19th-century Scottish poets Writers from Edinburgh